Feb 17 The Complete Guide to Boosting your Metabolism Forever

Remember when you were 20 and you could literally eat and drink pretty much anything you wanted? Man…. those were the days! You didn’t need to worry about having that extra slice of pizza, or if you had to regularly go to the gym. You looked at the mirror and you had a great body - without evening trying!

However, things have started to change. Now, in your late 20’s, 30’s or 40’s, you look at the mirror and wonder, “where the hell is that gut come from?” Sadly, this is a common experience than necessary. It shouldn’t come as a surprise as we get older, even though you seemingly were doing all the right things, your body/metabolism begins to slow down.

Here’s three reason why:

1) You become less active

As you get older, you become busier with work, family, and other responsibilities. If you are like most busy professionals with a desk job, you walk around far less than you did in high school/college.

As a result, your physical activities become less of a priority.

2) You eat fewer calories and eat at the wrong times

While common sense would make us think eating less would help prevent weight gain, it actually slows down our metabolism. Our metabolism is highly sensitive to both physical activity and the types of foods we eat. Instead, we need to focus on the food quality and types of foods we eat to keep our metabolism running smoothly.

3) You lose lean body mass

With less physical activity, fewer calories, and more stress, your muscles will atrophy. Without adequate physical activity, your lean physique slows disappears and your metabolism slows. In addition, all those hours of sitting leads to a host of muscular problems that can leave your body damaged over time. (click here to learn more)

Now that we have covered why your metabolism slows down, let's dive into what and how your metabolism works.

So, what actually is your metabolism?

Metabolism is scientifically defined as “the chemical processes inside living cells that are necessary for the maintenance of life.”

Simply put, your metabolism encompasses all the chemical reactions within your body to function, to grow our muscles, to rebuild your body and muscles, and to survive. When your metabolism is out of whack, it will inhibits your body to properly function.

The Four Components of Metabolism

When most people think of metabolism they usually think of it has the body’s ability to burn fat or calories. While it's true to a certain degree, yet your metabolism is so much more than calories in vs calories. Your metabolism helps your body function at maximum capacity.

With that being said, I also understand the primary reason why you are even reading this article is to look good naked. (Fun fact - one of my superpowers is stating the obvious :p) So, let's dive into it.

First, your metabolism made up of the following:

Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR)

Physical Activity Level (PAL)

Thermic Effect of Feeding (TEF)

Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT)

Let’s breakdown each section bit by bit:

1) Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR)

Resting metabolic rate is the amount of calories it takes to do all the physiological housekeeping chores within your body. So, if you literally just lay in bed for 24 hours, this is the number of calories your body burns to simply function. Your organs and bones routine remodel and maintain their cellular function, this does requires a large amount of calories. Fun fact: an extra pound of muscle can burn an additional 50 calories, even when you are laying in bed!

This one is pretty obvious. Every time you workout, you burn calories to execute your desired movement.

Your physical activity typically constitutes to 15-30 percent of your total calorie expenditure. The amount of calories burned depends on your activity and exercise. The more strenuous the exercise, the more muscles engaged leads to more calories being burned. We will cover this in more depth later.

3) Thermic Effect of Feeding (TEF)

Every time you chew, sallow, and digest your food, your body needs to expend energy to process. Truth is, not all foods are equal.

Some foods are more "metabolically expense" to breakdown, meaning your body burns additional calories. The prime example is protein. Protein is far more "metabolically expensive" burning twice as many calories to digested when compared to carbs and fats. This is why having a higher protein consumption is so strongly recommended.

Here’s a quick macronutrient breakdown comparison:

Carbohydrates – 5 to 15% of the calories burned during digestion.

Fats – A high end 5 to 15% of the calories burned during digestion.

Protein – 20 to 35% of the calories burned during digestion.

4) Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT)

When it comes to exercise, we typically think of a vigorous activity leaving us exhausted. Yet, not all exercises need to leave us in this drained state. NEAT includes all the movement you do throughout the day, such as walking. In fact, walking is the most underrated exercise. Most people are constantly neglecting or dissing walking altogether for not being challenging.

Make this your rule moving forward: walk 10,000 steps everyday.

Now, you should have a better understanding of how and why your metabolism burns calories. The human body is an amazing, super efficient machine. It's ability to micro-manage our metabolism, movement, and overall function is remarkable. I told you all this for this important lesson:

“Your body is not wasteful. It will burn fat only when it needs energy!”

Your body is an efficient machine that will only use energy when it's necessary. In other words, you can’t burn fat without increasing your body’s need for energy.

If you want to lose that unwanted body fat, you'll need to create a high energy demand. You can do this by manipulating your metabolism into burning additional calories outside the gym.

Do this and you'll be burning additional calories outside the gym. Your metabolism will greedy and excitedly gobble up your excess body fat, leaving you with a lean physique.

Enough the prelude. Let's dive into to good stuff.

How to Rev up Your Metabolism Forever

We've discussed what your metabolism is, let's examine how to manipulate these variables.

I won’t sugarcoat this: in order to get the metabolism you desire, you’ll need to work for it. You cannot simply wish for a faster metabolism or a lean physique. You need to earn it, yet if you do the work, you'll be leaner, stronger, and healthier than ever before.

A bold statement? Maybe… only if you do the work.

In order to maximize your metabolism, you’ll need to manipulate the following variables:

Nutritional habits and eating

Resistance Training

Proper Supplementation

These three elements work together in unison to help you to maximize your metabolism. Think of your metabolism as a three legged stool: the seat of the stool (your metabolism) needs all three legs for support.

Let’s take a closer look into each variable to rev up your metabolism.

1) Nutritional Habits and Eating

It comes as no surprise that you must "watch what you eat" in order to improve your metabolism and body composition.

Unfortunately, "watching what you eat" has become synonymous with deprivation, tedious, and monotony.

Most people think they’re doing everything right, yet can’t figure out why they’re not losing body fat. The missing puzzle piece can only found once you start tracking your nutritional habits and calories.

I'll be the first to admit that tracking calories is a tedious process, and can become impractical. However, tracking calories isn't a long term solution, rather a short term solution. This will give you your biggest weapon to maximize your progress: awareness.

Otherwise, you'll continue to suffer from what I call the "3 Percent problem" (Click here to learn more.)

This is why I have all my clients tract their calories for 1-3 weeks. It may be those extra pumps of pumpkin spice syrup, or overestimated portion sizes. In short, what gets managed, gets measured.

1) Adequate Total Energy Intake

To lose body fat, you need to be in a caloric deficit. To build muscle, you need to be in a caloric surplus. This is the basic and most fundamental rule governed by energy balance, yet you must only choose one.

To quote Confucius, "person who chases two rabbits, catches none."

You must know which goal you want to achieve and commit to it, otherwise you’ll continue the tread of yo-yo dieting. Click here to learn more.

2) Adequate Protein Intake

Your muscles are primarily comprise of protein. Proteins are essential for repair, rebuilding, and putting on muscle. This is why protein is an essential to have adequate amounts within your diet.

2) Keeps you full - Protein will keep you fuller for longer compared to carbs and fats. In addition, when all you want to do is eat a family size Meat Lovers pizza, protein is your BFF.

3) Burns more calories during the digestion process. Protein has been proven to be 30% more metabolically expensive than carbs or fats. This means, if you had 100 grams of protein, your body will burn 30 calories by breaking the protein down into usable amino acids.

Make this your rule moving forward: get 1g of protein per pound of bodyweight. For example, a 200 pound individual should have 200g of protein daily.

3) Adequate Micronutrient intake

While calories and macros hog all the centerstage attention, micronutrients are just as important.

Micronutrients, or micros, assist in the production of energy, muscle development, and well being. We primarily receive our micronutrients from our fruits and veggies, and/or green supplements. As we grow older, we need to ensure we get enough of the following: Vitamin B2 (Riboflavin), B6, B12, D and E and the minerals calcium and iron.

4) Adequate Hydration

Proper hydration can have a significant impact on your health, performance, and metabolism. If we honest with ourself for a moment, we know we aren't drinking enough water. The main reasons dehydration has as adverse aﬀect on exercise and overall health can be summarized as follows:

• Decrease in blood volume and blow ﬂow

• Decrease heat dissipation and removal of wastes from exercise

• Decreased metabolism and increased organ stress (ouchie)

• Decrease body temperature

Make this your rule going forward: drink ½ your bodyweight (in pounds) in ounces of water. That means a 150lb person should drink at least 75oz of water (~9 standard glasses), each day. Carry a water bottle, drink it up, and refill it every two hours or when empty.

There are many key training components to consider within your training program. Adhering to progressive overload is one of most important strength training principle. It’s one of the oldest, most research-grounded, and well established training principle.

Simply put, progressive overload is training hard enough to warrant adaptations. You need to challenge your body to disrupt your body's homeostasis. This will cause a cascade of events that will elicit improvements in muscular size and strength. Your metabolism will ramp up to repair the muscle tissues, eliciting improvements in both muscular strength and size. This processed is known as the "afterburn." This will leave your metabolism jacked for hours post workout.

To capitalize on the afterburn affect, you'll need to focus on compound exercises over isolation exercises. Compound exercises (i.e. deadlift, squats, bench press, etc.) are any exercises using two or more different joints to stimulate different muscle groups. Compound exercises are essential to building strength and having a lean physique and a powerful metabolism.

While I could talk about day about the benefits of compound lifts over isolation work, here’s a few benefits I want to highlight:

1) Better for Overall Progress: It doesn’t matter if your goal is to build muscle or to look good naked, compound lifts are a necessary within your program. You’re doing more work with a heavy set of 5 rep squats or deadlifts than 1000 rep glute kickbacks.

2) Time Efficient: Listen, you are a busy person. I get that. That’s why you don’t have time to do 3 sets of 1000 rep glute kickbacks for each leg. You cannot afford to spend 2 hours working out. By focusing on compound lifts, this will allow your workouts to be time efficient so you can get in, get out and enjoy the rest of your day.

3) More Effective than Isolation Exercises: Deadlifts and squats ultiltizes 200+ muscles in your body to perform a single rep. By engaging more muscles, this will lead to better gains, progress, and maximizing the after burn affect. While there is definitely a time and place for isolation work, the majority of your workout should consist of compound exercises.

Due to the amount of muscles being used, it’s best to do your lifts between 3-12 reps. By staying within this range, you’ll build both strength and get that muscular, lean body you been carving. If you have reached a plateau or don’t know how to structure your workouts, click here.

Your workouts should should consist of compound lifts, adhering to progressive overload, enjoyable, and rev up your metabolism for hours post workout.

Your workouts should leave your metabolism revved up so you can continue burning calories throughout the day. I won't sugarcoat this: you'll need to spend a significant amount of time to permanently alter your metabolism. If you truly want to transform yourself, you'll need to commit yourself to your goal by making your workouts a non-negotiable.

To take your metabolism from sluggish to revving full speed ahead, follow these guidelines:

Exercise for at least 5 hours a week - According to research from the University of Wyoming, it takes at least 5 hours a week to see real body composition results. Now, this may seem like alot, but did you know the average American watches about 28 hours of TV per week? Truth of the matter is, everyone has the time to make it happen. Finding time to exercise is a matter of mindset and priorities.

Make Each Workout Count - Time is a precious asset that we can never get back. To maximize your workouts, you’ll need to focus on intense strength training and cardio sessions. You want to feel stimulated, not annihilate after each workout. If your workouts are leaving your body beaten up, chances are you’re not going to last very long and greatly increase your risk of getting injured.

For more info, click here to learn how to gauge your workout intensity.

Give Your Body Time to Recover - Recovery/sleep is the often forgotten component of sleep. We spend so much time and energy focusing on what exercises to do, and what to eat that we completely overlook sleep. In order to build a faster metabolism, you’ll need bigger muscles. To get bigger muscles, you’ll must be able to fully recover between sessions. It’s during the recovery phases that your muscles restock their fuel stores, repairs and rebuilds the muscle tissues. If you over stress your muscles, you’ll actually hinder progress and slow your metabolism. Make this your rule moving forward, you must get 7-9 hours of quality sleep each and every night!

Change your program every 4-6 weeks - Eventfully, your body will adapt to the stressors placed on it despite how intense your workouts are. As with any other stresses (work, relationships,etc.) the body will adapt to all demands placed on top. This will lead to a plateau.

Do a Perfect Rep Every Time - When it comes to training, you need to work hard. Period. There’s no way around it. However, you need to work hard AND smart in order to achieve your goals as quick as possible while remaining injury free. The quietest route to becoming injured is prioritizing the amount of weight over everything. This includes poor form, faulty mechanics, and half reps. Instead, make sure you know what your are doing and focus on performing a perfect rep every time.

For more info, click here to learn how to do a perfect rep every time.

Proper Supplementation

“Supplementation - the addition of an extra element or amount of something.”

Far too often, people try to get along without fully incorporating all three elements. They exercise without changing their diet. They take supplements without working out. They eat less and do nothing else. The problem with all these tactics is they take you in to a frustrating circle back to where you started!

A frequent question I get is do I need to take supplements if I exercise and watch my nutrition? The truth you definitely do not need to take supplements, yet you won't get to point A to point B as quickly. If you are consistency nailing your caloric, macro, and micro intake, then you don't need supplements. The whole purpose of supplements to help you meet nutritional deficities. However, the majority of us do need help in one of those areas, so having the proper supplements will help.

You want to ensure your nutrition, strength training, and supplements to work as a harmonized unit to produce the fastest, healthiest, and most impressive results.

While the media does an excellent job of convincing people supplements are #fakenews, this just isn’t the case. The following recommended supplements will provide important muscle building and fat burning nutrients. Simply put, these supplements have repeatedly shown to offer benefits to improving body composition, performance, and health.

1) Fish Oil Capsules - Fish oil supplements have been shown to have powerful antioxidant, ant-cancer, anti-inflammatory and anti-heart disease properties. Fish oils increase levels of important enzymes that boost the calorie burning ability of your metabolism. In addition, fish oils has the following benefits:

Reduced risk of diabetes

Reduced risk of cardiovascular disease and stroke

Less joint pain

There’s a quick tip to know if you have a high quality fish oil. Place your fish oil capsule into the freezer for several hours or over night. If it's cloudy, it's not a super high quality product. If it's still really clear, than it is super high quality.

2) Protein Supplements - Proteins has repeatedly emerges as the true superstar of boosting your metabolism when compared to carbs and fats. Due to their status, I strongly recommend you consistency nail your protein intake (1g per pound of bodyweight). Protein supplements are neither magical muscle builders nor superior to whole foods. They are, however, super convenient when you need a quick dose of muscle building amino acids when on the go.

Whole food sources are always best when compared to supplements. Try to only use protein supplements when you are struggling to reach your daily protein intake, need a quick snack, or need it for a post workout.

However, not all protein supplements are equal. Always check the label. Make sure your protein supplement contains 20-25g of protein, <4g of fats and carbohydrates. Once you find a supplement that fit these standards (and you enjoy drinking), go ahead and use it!

3) Green Supplements - In order to maximize your metabolism, you’ll need to eat adequate amounts of protein and veggies. In fact, for best results, you want to eat 10 servings of fruits and veggies throughout the day.

Quick question for you: Does that sound daunting or impossible??

Unless you are a professional chef or have an excessive amount of time, you probably don't have sufficient time to cook and prep your veggies. This is why I recommended green supplements. This will allow you to fill in the dietary gaps to meet your micronutrient, and fruits/veggies goals.

Similar to protein supplements, whole food sources will always be preferred over supplements. I don't want you to get into the bad habit of just replying on green supplements. This is why I strongly recommended taking your green supplement in conjunction with real foods. I personally use Athletic Greens as my supplement and been absolutely loving it.

4) Post Workout Recovery Drinks -Recovery nutrition is essential to maximize your progress and assist in the recovery process. Studies have repeatedly shown protein synthesis (the process of building muscles) is stimulated and protein breakdown (the process of tearing down muscles) is suppressed when consuming the correct nutrients post workout.

After working out, your muscles are desperate to restock their fuel stores, repairs and rebuilds the muscle tissues. The absolute best post workout nutrition contain rapidly digested protein and carbohydrates at a 1:2 ratio. Some benefits include:

Improved recoverability from exercise

Less muscle soreness

Increased ability to build muscle

Improved immune system (fighting the common cold)

Improved bone mass

Improve fat burning with your next workout

With all these benefits, it should come as no surprise that everyone should have a post workout recovery drink. Aim to drink your recovery drink within 30-60 minutes post workout.

TL;DR?

We just covered a metric shit ton of material in a very short amount of time. We have discussed the following:

Why your metabolism slow down as we age

what your metabolism and the different components

How to Permanently Rev up your metabolism with:

Proper Nutrition

Resistance training

Supplementation

Since we've covered a lot of information, you may be wondering, "What the fuck do I do now? How can I use this to help me??"

Don't worry, my semi-confused friends. I've broken EVERYTHING you need to do into a small To-Do list.

Walk 10-12K steps daily.

Strength Train 3-4 times per week.

Focus on compound lifts while adhering to progressive overload with excellent form.

Have 1-2 serving of protein with each meal.

Having 1 serving of veggies with each meal.

Get 7-9 hours of sleep each night.

Use supplement in conjunction with real food to meet nutritional needs.

Drink adequate amounts of water everyday.

You should (hopefully) have a better understanding on how your metabolism functions. Your metabolism utilizes your calories to fuel your body to proper at it's best. Your body is an amazing, complex efficient machine that doesn't waste energy. If you want to lose extra pounds around your hip, and stomach you need to create an energy demand.

Allow me to take the confusion out of the equation to provide the simplicity you need to take the necessary action. Remember, brilliance lies in simplicity, but you still need to take action.

Online coaching is personal training and dietary consulting via the internet. Not only is it much more convenient for you, but it also the most affordable way yo get you amazing results.

You get a 100% personalized training and nutrition plan each month. On top of that, each month’s plan will be customized based on your feedback, progress, and results to ensure optimal results every phase of your program.

The most important part of any successful fitness program isn’t the perfect training plan, or golden macro ratio...it’s YOU.

With my online coaching program, you get:

- A customized training plan based on your experience, goals, abilities, and more. Your plan will be designed to not only take advantage of your current training experience, but also teach you new things, all while helping reach your goal.

- You’ll have all of this available at the touch of a button with the Trainerize Training App. All you have to do is pull up your phone, open the Trainerize app, and execute the program. No more wondering, “what should I do today”...it’s all there.

- A personalized nutrition plan. In terms of diet, I’ll create a customized nutrition plan that will tailored to your busy lifestyle so you can achieve your fitness goals and maintain for the long term. We will focus on a holistic approach to help you build muscle, lose body fat, and have more energy.

Together, we’ll set realistic goals, crush the plan, and create your best body.

If you follow my lead, and put in the work, you’ll absolutely transform your body for the better, to become the the stronger, more confident, and more capable to handle to whatever curve ball life throws your way.

Allow me to take the confusion out of the equation to provide the simplicity you need to take the necessary action. Remember, brilliance lies in simplicity, but you still need to take action.